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“How much’ll we be getting for the body?” Fred asked as his shovel struck another root.
“Nothing if you don’t get a move on. Sun’s almost down, we need to get,” Andy said. He shoved Fred out of the way to worry at the root. “Dig on that side again.” He pointed at the head of the grave.
“I don’t like this, Andy. Folks don’t get buried much anymore. What if this one’s kin come after us?”
“We’d be done already, if you’d just dig where I told you, where the gravediggers dug.”
“I did! Them roots come crawling out of their own accord! They’re excessive.”
“Just get on with it.”
Fred’s shovel struck wood again, and it jumped in his hands, striking his leg with the sharp end. “Damn it all to hell!” He tried to brush the dirt off the wound, but only managed to get it bleeding properly.
“Wait, that wasn’t a root. Clean that up, I think we found the coffin,” Andy said.
“I wonder why they can’t just bury them three feet down. Six seems excessive.”
“Is that your word of the day now, Fred? You’re using it a bit excessive.”
“Dunno, I think the use is excessively? Excessive like? If we do this job, I can go to the university, maybe become a teacher. Teachers have to know the right words, don’t they?”
“Just clean it up,” Andy motioned with his hand as he bent down to get a closer look. “That’s the coffin alright. Nice one too, shouldn’t be too many worms.”
“I hate worms, they’re ex-”
“Don’t say it. Say it, and I’ll take this pick to your thick skull.”
“I was just saying.”
Fred scraped away at the top, and the large, embossed crucifix became visible. A clump of mud slid off the wall, clomping onto the coffin, obscuring the lid again. Something else stuck out of the dirt in the side wall of their excavation.
“Hey, Andy? I’ve got something else over here. Looks like another coffin.”
“Yeah, but that one seems old,” Andy said dismissively. “No point digging that up.”
“Won’t we get money? Even for old ones?”
“I suppose… Fine, open that one a little, let’s see if the body’s still in one piece.”
Fred pulled his kerchief over his nose and mouth, tying it at the back of his head. “Here goes,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. He shunted his shovel into the protruding wood, it gave way without a fuss. Both men flinched in anticipation of the stench, but it never came.
“Very old then,” Andy said. “No point-”
“Hey, he’s still fresh in here.”
Andy peered into the dark in the coffin. The corpse seemed intact. He held his gas lamp to it. The body was dried out, but not at all the bones and dust he’d been expecting. Its mouth was open like it was screaming, and its hands were bent into claws. Andy looked closer at the inside of the coffin. The lining, mostly rotted away, was shredded. There were scratches on the lid.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stuff the stiff under us. This guy’s our jackpot. He was buried before he was dead! The University’s going to pay us a mint for this one!”
Excavating out of a wall was much easier than digging down. Soon the hole was large enough to tear away the side skirt of the coffin and bring the body out. It was rigid, like dried twigs, but between them, they manoeuvred it out onto the grave’s actual occupant.
“He’s perfect,” Andy said. “A bit small though, like a boy.”
“Look at his face. It’s like he died screaming.”
“Wouldn’t you if you were buried alive?”
Fred grimaced, not much liking to think on that, and adjusted his trousers again. “I think I did me a bad one, Andy. It’s bleeding pretty.”
“Alright, we’ll have a look at it. Let’s get this deader out the hole and get on with it.”
There was a sound close by like air rushing out of a cavern. Both men looked around.
“It’s gotten dark, Andy,” Fred said.
“I can see that. We just need to get him back to the carriage and we’re home free and in the money. This one’s worth gold, I reckon.”
“Alright, I’ve got his head, you get his legs.”
Fred put his hands under the armpits of the corpse. “He’s pretty light, not excessive at all.”
Andy dropped the legs. “One more time, Fred, you say that one more time-”
“Alright, alright. If you feel so strongly about it then- What’s wrong?”
Andy’s tirade had cut short, but he made a small sound in his throat. Like a beggar looking for alms, his hand moved slowly to point down to the corpse between them.
“Yeah, I told you I was bleeding. But you didn’t listen!”
“Th-The deader.”
“What? Oh, I got some on him,” Fred said and cursed. “Think that’ll ruin our asking price?”
“He-” But Andy couldn’t seem to get the words out and Fred, still trying to clear the bleeding off of the corpse took to making things worse.
Then his eyes passed over its face. Its eyelids were open.
It blinked.
A silence fell between the two men as they stared at the body.
“You’re my best mate, Andy,” Fred whispered.
The corpse’s fingers clicked and creaked. It let out another breath, and its lips drew back, revealing fangs. “You’re my only friend, Fred.”
